


Five Things Phil Has Been To Natasha

by TheDragonAndTheHare



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: 5 Things, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Background Relationships, Brotp, Friendship, M/M, alternate character history
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-13
Updated: 2015-04-13
Packaged: 2018-03-22 18:19:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3738631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDragonAndTheHare/pseuds/TheDragonAndTheHare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The five roles Phil has been for Natasha:</p>
<p>Just a target.<br/>Just a man.<br/>A colleague.<br/>A friend.<br/>And a father.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Things Phil Has Been To Natasha

**Author's Note:**

> Something that has been in the works for at least 18 months, but only recently my muse has returned and I've actually been able to write. Unbeta'd.

**1\. Just A Target**

***~.~***

Natasha is used to minimal contact on a job. 

Just a phone call, a manila envelope of money and information.

This is one of those jobs.

Early in the morning, an hour before sunrise, she scales a sky rise in New York City. It takes about an hour to get to the top, and once she’s there, she takes a moment to take in the view. It’s not every day you get a scene like this – it’s the little things she enjoys, like the New York City skyline before dawn and a murder. 

Then she sets up her sniper rifle and focuses on an apartment building a few blocks away, and locates the correct apartment – twenty floors up, third to the right. She sets up her escape route, in case of an emergency, dropping a rope down the side of the building. And then she was another twenty-five minutes to kill. It’s a little cold in early dawn light, and so Natasha takes a sip from the tea in her thermostat, and has another look at the file.

Her target is Phillip Coulson: a middle-aged man, living his bachelor life in his bachelor apartment; he will get up at 6AM, and make himself a coffee before coming out onto the sizeable balcony for his daily morning yoga ritual. He’s married to his work, which is supposedly somewhere high in the government. It’s enough for a foreign government to warrant his death, and so here she is for no less than a fifty grand.

The sound of a helicopter jars her from her thoughts, and she looks away from the file as it flies far over the freeway. The sun is just starting to come up now, just a tiny semi-circle of light slowly rising from the horizon. She checks her watch, and sees that it’s 6AM, right on the dot. She takes another sip of tea as she imagines the sound of alarm clocks all around the nation going off, and feels a little grateful that it’s not a sound that she wakes up to.

She takes a look through the scope, and sees movement behind the windows. She doesn’t make any attempt to fire just yet – she’ll do that when he’s on the balcony. Meanwhile, there’s still eight more minutes to kill, so she finishes her tea, checks her rifle, looks at the file again, and keeps an eye on that helicopter, which is doing it’s early morning traffic reporting thing.

The sun is above the horizon by the time it’s twelve past, and there is more light on the balcony now, giving her a clearer shot. The sliding door to the balcony opens, and the man steps out onto the landing, sipping coffee from his mug. He’s shirtless, only wearing a pair of sweat pants, and Natasha notices the fit physique. She thinks it’s a little weird that someone that high in the government would have the time to work out, but she dismisses the thought – she’s not being paid to think about this guy.

He sets down the coffee cup and his cellphone on the little table, and rolls out the nearby placed yoga mat. She lines up her crosshairs with his forehead after he sits down. She intends to make the shot as clean as possible, her little courtesy gift to the police who will be cleaning up the scene later.

She taps the button on her earwig, turning it on – her employers would be watching and listening, from wherever they were. “Target acquired,” she said, and just as she’s about to pull the trigger, there’s a reply, and not from her employers.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Black Widow.”

Natasha had lost track of the helicopter, but now there it was, hovering nearby, with someone very cockily hanging out of the open door. The helicopter comes in closer, until it’s just a few feet above the rooftop, and the man jumps down. Natasha heads for her escape route, only to spot a sniper on a rooftop a few blocks over. She sighs, and would have jumped anyway, but if there’s one sniper in view, there’ll be even more not so. She can’t leave, not yet, and so she does the sensible thing by holding her hands up in surrender and turning around.

“There’s no need for that, Miss Widow,” a third voice says. “Pick up the scope from the rifle,” it instructs.

Natasha does so, and instinctively points it at her target. He’s now got a pair of binoculars and looking at her, his phone at his ear.

“You’ll need to give me a little more foreplay before we get right to the action, Mr. Coulson. I may not be the romantic type, but you’re gonna have to put more work into it than just threatening me.” She sees the helicopter guy smirking out of the corner of her eye.

“We just want to talk, Miss Widow. Threats won’t be made unless you force us.”

“Well, I better not force you, then.”

“If you could be so kind as to get into the helicopter with Agent Hawkeye-”

“That’d be me,” the agent in front of her said with a wink.

“I got that.”

“As I was saying, if you’d be so kind as to go with Agent Hawkeye, we can go to a more secure location where we can talk in private.”

“Hang on, wait. I don’t even know who you guys are, or what you want to talk about. You’ll need a better roofie than your suave self to get me to go with you.” Natasha eyes her escape route, just a few feet to her right.

“We’re Agents of SHIELD,” Coulson said, and Agent Hawkeye produced a badge for her to look at. “You have some information that we’d very much like to acquire.”

Natasha feels very much in danger now. SHIELD aren’t the best people for her to be entangling herself with, she has pissed them off quite a bit. “I don’t think that would be the best for my wellbeing, would it?”

She readies herself to quickly run to the edge and jump – she has the equipment all ready to go.

“I don’t think I trust you guys quite enough,” she says, taking a small step back. “You’ve led me here like a rat in a maze,” she realized it a few minutes ago. “That kinda hurts a girls feelings.”

“We won’t hurt you,” Coulson quickly tries to placate.

“Still don’t trust you,” she says, and makes a dive over the short wall, and falls over the edge.

“Stand down, Agents!” Coulson says in her ear.

“You sure about that, sir? I could very easily untie this rope,” Hawkeye says.

Natasha quickly jumps onto a window ledge someway down, just in case he does.

“No, let her go. We’ll get her soon, though. Leave her be for now.”

She’s not sure about what information they want; she has a lot of it, to be sure, tucked away in her brain, and it’ll need a little convincing on their part to make sure it was worth her while to divulge it. She pulls the earpiece out and lets it fall to the ground before starting her descent once more.

***~.~***

**2\. Just A Man**

***~.~***

Natasha hasn’t been enjoying the past couple of months. Her funds have been dwindling, and it’s been hard trying to find another job. No doubt SHIELD’s doing, she suspects bitterly, trying to wheedle her out. She’s been bumming around Johannesburg, trying to make her shrinking bank account last as long as possible until she can find some work.

It’s when she finally starting to get desperate that she finally hears something, just a few whispers sent along the grapevine, but definitely meant for her. She sends out a few whispers herself, and gets a reply a few days later. A proper reply, written on paper and dropped in front of her in passing. It has the address of a nearby motel, and a time and a date written on it, in a very neat script.

Natasha likes to look somewhat presentable, when meeting a prospective client, but looking presentable is a challenge when you don’t have a place to shower and the weather is very hot. She stinks with sweat, and she hasn’t been able to wash her clothes in a few days, either. Not to mention, it’s been a little more than stressful sleeping in doorways, having to choose between shelter and food, her money is running that low.

Normally she wouldn’t trust anyone who would use these measures as a way to contact her. And she is very wary, she’ll carry protection with her at all times, and she’ll scope the motel out before the meeting, making sure there is an escape route possible, if she needs to make quick getaway.

Natasha does what she can for a meager disguise, breaking into a house so she can steal some clothes (believe it or not, she feels guilty when she has to do something bad to a person that definitely doesn’t deserve it, and so leaves an apology note that says “thank you and sorry”), taking pants, a fresh shirt, a pair of sunglasses, a hair tie and a hat. She wishes she could take the time to brush her hair and teeth, but she knows not to leave any traces of DNA.

All together, the outfit makes her appearance at least slightly altered, knowing most will require a double take or a closer look to see who she really is. She makes her way to the motel in question, and it’s easy to judge that it’s nothing special. It’s off the main road, easy to over look. Just the way government officials on top-secret business like it. Natasha doesn’t stay long, makes sure to keep moving so as not to raise suspicion by the people no doubt keeping watch.

She returns later, at her appointed time, punctual and as well presented as she can be, given her current circumstances. She knocks on the specified door, three times, and waits as she listens to the sounds of the locks coming undone. Natasha isn’t surprised when she sees it’s her failed target answering.

“Come in, Miss Romanoff,” Coulson says politely, opening the door and gesturing inside. “Take a seat.”

She surveys the room before taking a step inside. Agent Hawkeye is sitting on the single queen sized bed in nothing but a towel, smelling of soap and cleanliness, his hair and skin still wet. She sees Coulson’s suit jacket on the back of one of the chairs at the small table, and his sleeves are rolled up and his tie hanging loose; he’s sweating at his temples and his face has a slight pink tinge. The South African heat is getting to him, or someone else was.

Natasha continues to be wary, not saying a word as she crosses into the room and sits on the seat with the jacket. She cross her arms and hooks one knee over the other, making sure they understood her stance on the situation.

“Would you like a drink, Miss Romanoff? Or a shower, maybe? I know it’s been a while since you’ve had access to the basics.” He’s being kind, and that makes Natasha suspicious. She narrows her eyes and doesn’t answer yet, trying to figure him out.

“I’m not trying to trick you or trap you. I’ll do whatever I can to make you feel comfortable here before we talk. Take a shower, we’ll order some food. We have agents surrounding the building. I’ll be completely honest with you, I promise.”

“I can vouch for him, if you’d like,” Agent Hawkeye said.

“Yeah, I bet,” Natasha finally said. “I would like that shower.”

“Great. We have fresh clothes that are your size. There are also toiletries in the bathroom that you’re free to use - they haven’t been tampered with, I promise. There’ll be food here when you get out.”

Natasha wasn’t sure what to make of this, but she was vulnerable in her current position, and here someone was offering to be her friend, or an ally at least. She wasn’t able to turn down their help, and they knew it. She looked between the two of them, trying to suss out the unsaid relationship these two had going on - it may give her some blackmail ammunition.

After a moment of her thinking, she gets up, and walks into the steamy bathroom. She really is dying for that shower.

***~.~***

When she finally comes out of the bathroom, hair dripping and skin finally, wonderfully clean, she returns in nothing but a towel, using another to dry her hair. There’s takeout on the table, and Coulson and Hawkeye are devouring their own meals, and hers waiting patiently on the edge closest. She doesn’t say a thing as she takes it, still in her towel, and sits on the bed to eat it. 

They’ve stopped eating, their eyes on her. Coulson is obviously floundering as to what to say as she tucks in. She hasn’t had a hot meal in days, and she ignores them for a few moments while she eats. 

“So what’s the proposition you’ve got for me?” Natasha asks, looking up at them. She sees Hawkeye is struggling not to laugh as he looks at Coulson, who is blushing furiously, and doing the whole looking-everywhere-else routine. Hawkeye is obviously a lot more comfortable with the naked woman in the room than Coulson is.

“Uh… Yeah, so, the thing is…”

“What Phil here is trying to say,” Hawkeye butts in, seeing Coulson struggling, “is that we can see you’re valuable, an asset to whoever has paid for your services. And we’d like you to become an asset for us at SHIELD. Permanently.”

“Yeah, what he said.”

Natasha looks between the both of them. “So… you’re offering me a job?”

“Yes.”

“After you guys make sure that I don’t get any work at all for the past several months?”

“Uh… yeah.”

“And what if I refuse? How can I trust you at all?”

Coulson is finally able to slip on his mask again, and speaks to her without stammering. “If you refuse, Miss Romanoff, we can make sure you never get any work again. Not even as a burger flipper at a McDonalds.”

“You’ve really backed me into a corner, huh.”

“You gave us no choice. Now, what do you say?”

There was nothing else to say.

“Fine,” she says. “You got me.”

***~.~***

**3\. A Colleague**

***~.~***

Natasha has been at SHIELD for about a year now, and now she has to admit, life has been a little easier. Don’t get her wrong, she enjoyed her previous life: she enjoyed the travel, loved playing the tourist when she got a break in between hits. And, true, the first few months were boring at SHIELD, only involving SHIELD regulation training and SHIELD regulation paperwork.

Coulson had patiently explained to her that despite her extensive previous training, it was a necessary protocol that needed to be followed for all new recruits. She’s a world class gymnast and athlete, she didn’t need much more training in that area, but she has been able to hone her skills with a gun, which while adequate before, are now on par with Hawkeye’s.

Speaking of, she’s been noticing Clint has been slowly chipping away at the walls she put up around herself. Natasha is slowly allowing herself to trust him; curious as to what she could pertain from such a friendship, she allows him to do this. He treats her like a wounded, wild animal that’s afraid of the human trying to help it, and he’s right to. She grew up being taught that emotional bonds were a weakness and to be avoided. Natasha has been doing that pretty well all her life.

She’s come to the realization that it’s okay to let people in. So she does, starting with Clint. She gives in to his continuous chipping; his long, hard work to show he is someone that can be trusted.

Phil, meanwhile, keeps his distance. He takes a different strategy, but part of the plan he’s got with Clint. Natasha can see it, but doesn’t mind it. She’ll come to him in her own time, and for now they’ll keep their professional relationship. 

When their team goes out on a mission, they work together comfortably and have a good rapport. They spar and train together; he helps her with her paperwork from time to time. They are courteous to each other, and one will acknowledge the other if they pass each other in the hall. But that is all they are for now: just colleagues.

***~.~***

**4\. A Friend**

***~.~***

It’s not until during her second year at SHIELD, she finally feels comfortable enough to change the definition of the relationship they have. She’s been seeing him a little more outside work, when she goes drinking with Clint and sometimes Phil will tag along. Soon enough, she’s confident enough to say that Phil is no longer a colleague, but a friend.

And she says that to him, while they’re sitting in a booth in one of her favourite bars, waiting for Clint to get back from the toilet. She takes a sip of her beer, before leaning towards Phil so he can hear.

“We’re friends now,” she says bluntly.

Phil blinks as he processes what he hears, but then he gives a small smile. “I’m glad,” he replies, and holds up his beer, “To friendship!”

Natasha rolls her eyes, but smiles in return and clinks their bottles together, taking a sip just as Clint gets back, sliding into place besides Phil.

“What’d I miss?”

Natasha and Phil share a look before brushing the moment away.

“Nothing,” says Phil, putting an arm around Clint and giving him a quick kiss on the cheek.

Natasha looks down, giving them their moment, and her smile grows a little wider. Her life is starting to look a whole lot better with these two men in her life. Their friendship goes from strength to strength after that.

***~.~***

A few months later, Clint is out on a mission (something about retrieving a particular penguin from Antarctica), and Natasha definitely won’t admit to missing him. But she remains determined to keep her Wednesday night schedule, and so turns up as per usual on the fire escape outside Phil and Clint’s apartment with their usual Thai order. She meekly taps on the window, even though she can’t see Phil in the room.

When he does come padding into the room, he takes a long look at her before opening the window. And the longer he stands there, with his hands on his hips and pouting in mock anger, her scowl just grows more and more.

“You’re looking all sad out there with your hoodie on and your ‘my soul has entered the void’ look on your face,” he says as she climbs in.

“I’m fine,” she says, walking through the apartment to the kitchen.

“And so is Clint,” he reminds her, shutting the window.

“Clint who?” She said, grabbing plates and cutlery. “Where’s the vodka?”

“Top shelf in the cupboard,” he replies, getting a beer for himself.

Natasha begins dumping her dinner onto the plate with a little more force than is necessary, and Phil is starting to feel genuine concern for the fork and plate she’s using.

“Do you need a hug?”

She gives him a look that indicates she doesn’t feel like talking and no, I don’t want that hug, let’s just fucking eat, Coulson.

“Well, the offer’s there, whenever you want it.”

She huffs and doesn’t saying, just takes her food and her vodka and stalks over to the couch and plops herself down in front of it (Clint usually takes the seat behind her, and she’ll sit between his legs, and it’s just a very warm and comfortable place to sit, and she really wishes he wasn’t in Antarctica retrieving a goddamn penguin, why the fuck do you even need this specific penguin, Fury??). And she’s fully prepared to accept the cold couch as her backing when Phil slides into place instead.

Natasha almost swivels around to look up at him, but instead she leans back and tells Phil to put on American Idol. He makes a brief argument for Supernanny, but then quickly backs down, because he knows not to argue with the Black Widow.

She eats some of her dinner in silence, looking between her food and the TV, but she finds the singing deafening and just wants to talk about something to distract herself.

“I’m being assigned an undercover mission. With the Iron Man himself, Tony Stark.”

“That’s going to be interesting.”

“I’ve heard he’s a dick.”

“Those rumors are true.”

Natasha groaned, and set her plate on the coffee table in front of her and grabbed the vodka, twisted off the cap and took a swig. Despite having the good influence that Phil and Clint provide in her life, it doesn’t make talking about what’s going on inside her head any easier.

“This op is going to be a walk in the park,” she says with a sigh, and goes back to finishing her meal.

They chit chat for a little while longer as they watch American Idol, until it finishes and Phil is free to change the channel. Natasha gets up, wandering to the bathroom, where she keeps a toiletries bag in the cupboard under the sink. She does her teeth, looking at herself idly in the mirror – her hair is getting long, she muses. After this op she’ll get a cut, she thinks.

When she’s done, she returns to Phil, hairbrush in hand, and holds it out for him to take.

“Can you brush my hair?”

Phil takes in her long, curly mane. “Are you sure you want me to tackle all that? That’s going to be a challenge.”

“I’ve seen you take down ten men with several paperclips and a ball of yarn. Besides, it feels nicer when someone else does it.”

Phi takes the hairbrush, and motions for her to sit back down. A few minutes into detangling just a small section of her hair, he says:

“I’m going to ask Clint to marry me.”

As soon as Natasha processes this, she’s pulling away, and the hairbrush stays in place thanks to Phil, making her yelp out in pain as the hair is nearly yanked from her head.

“Wha- ow!” She says, turning around and rubbing her head.

“Sorry. And I’m going to ask Clint to marry me, when he gets back. I was hoping you could come ring shopping with me.”

At first, Natasha remains blank, thinking. But then her smile grew two sizes that day, and she leaps from her position on the ground and into his arms, hugging him tightly.

“That’s great! That’s wonderful! He loves you so much, I know he’ll say yes!”

“You think so?”

“I know so!” She says confidently. “Wait, how is SHIELD going to react to this?”

“You don’t need to worry about that. Nick owes me a favour or two.”

***~.~***

**5\. A Father**

***~.~***

Despite that hurdle with Fury lying to them about Phil’s so-called death to get the Avengers to finally cooperate and stop the Chitauri invasion, Natasha is, and indeed all of the Avengers are, very glad to have him back.

When Fury had escorted Phil into the Avenger’s living room personally a few months after the battle, Natasha wasn’t able to keep her walls up for even a second. She’d been with Clint for every day of those six months, seen what the depression did to him – she was close to falling into that pit for herself.

So while Clint had his reunion with his husband, which contained a lot of tears and kisses, she stood aside, patiently waiting for her turn. Her bottom lip had begun to quiver, and her eyes begun to burn and her vision began to dance in a way that it hadn’t in years. Natasha struggled not to cry, her whole body shaking as she refused to let herself feel things she hadn’t been allowed to since she was a child.

When Phil finally turned to her, she was cautious to embrace him. 

“Are you really back?” She said, not opening her body up just yet, keeping her arms close and reserved against her middle.

“I’m really back.”

When he opened up his arms for her, she fell into them, hugging him so tightly and fiercely because she was so afraid that he would be gone again. 

“It’s okay,” he whispered to her. “You can cry.”

And she did. She sobbed into his shoulder, her tears making the cloth of Phil’s suit wet, but he didn’t say anything about it. He just held her, allowed her to do what she needed and petted her hair and made soft sounds into her ear. 

The father she had known in childhood would not have allowed her to cry, to show this weakness. Compassion, caring for others, the positive things in a person were all beaten out of her, all weaknesses that got you killed. But Phil’s taught her that it was the opposite. Showing emotion, being kind and -

And she’s going to stop reflecting on it. She knows the difference between good bullshit and bad bullshit, she remembers that lesson, and those positive things are strengths, too.

She could feel all the eyes of her comrades on her, could feel their shock at her sudden expression of emotion, and she was grateful when they never brought it up afterwards. They all look at her a little differently now, sure, now that they’ve had a glimpse at this side of her. And in the months following she sees that they’re working a lot better together for it, now that they all have a newfound understanding of who is perhaps the most mysterious member of the Avengers.

 

***~.~***

**Epilogue**

***~.~***

When the shit hits the fan with Hydra revealing themselves from within the ranks of SHIELD, the Avengers are fighting their way off a falling Helicarrier. Phil is directing as many remaining SHIELD agents onto the Bus, the plane that Natasha had watched him pour so many hours into lovingly designing it. She and Clint are in the cockpit, trying to keep the plane steady as the Helicarrier gradually drifts downward.

“We need to be gone two minutes ago,” Natasha says. “I’m going to check on Phil.” She would have contacted him in the comms, if Hydra hadn’t knocked out their communication networks. “Are you good here?”

“Yeah, go,” Clint said, trying to keep his concentration on the continually evolving situation outside.

She gets up and walks out of the cockpit, and is affronted by what feels like hundreds of agents crammed onto the plane. She isn’t sure what the safety limit of this thing is, but she knows they must be reaching it. She quickly moves down the plane, heading towards the cargo hold.

Natasha sees Phil on the ramp, firing at some Hydra agents while a few of their own quickly run on.

“Phil, we need to go! We can’t wait for everyone!”

Phil looks disheartened, but he nods. “She’s going down fast,” he agreed. “We need to get out of here.”

There’s a massive jerk from the Bus, knocking Natasha and Phil to their feet.

“I don’t think that had anything to do with the Helicarrier,” Phil groaned, getting up.

Natasha is already up and running to the cockpit, shoving her way through terrified SHIELD agents. She gets into the cockpit, where an agent is looking very proud of himself, towering over a clearly wounded Clint. She sees the gun in his hand, but before he has time to react to her barreling in she’s punched him square on the jaw. He slumps over the control board and onto the ground, and she grabs the gun.

She kneels down besides Clint, who’s taken control of the Bus again, but there’s blood pouring from his abdomen.

“Clint…” she says, pressing a hand to the wound, putting pressure on the wound.

“I’ll be fine, Nat,” he replies, but he’s getting paler by the second.

“I think it got your stomach.”

He gives a hollow laugh. “Yeah, that’ll explain why everything’s burning-“

Natasha is knocked onto her back, and the Hydra agent straddles her, a knife in his hands. She catches his hand before it gets to her chest, and struggles with him for control. She yells, trying to be heard by the other agents, but then she loses. The knife tears down the left side of her neck.

She can tell it’s hit an artery, but she’s quick in jamming the palm of her hand into his nose. He goes down, and then she grabs the knife stabs it into his chest. He’s gone, and so is the adrenaline.

“Nat!” She hears Clint shout, but she’s fallen. She keeps a hand to her neck, the blood spurting from between her fingers, but she can’t seem to keep enough pressure on it.

“Natasha!” She sees Phil’s face swimming above her, but she can’t concentrate on it.

“Phil…” she tries to say, but she feels out of breath. “I’m tired…”

“Stay with me! Don’t go to sleep, I don’t care how tired you are!”

She tries to hold onto his voice, reaches a hand out, but it falls against her chest as her strength leaves her. And then she’s gone.

***~.~***

When Natasha is next conscious, she realizes it kind of like one does in the middle of a dream. She’s laid out on a deck chair, with a large hat on, and sunglasses. She’s in a bikini, sunning herself on beautiful beach. The water sparkles brilliantly, a brilliant aquamarine. She looks to her left, and sees Clint, who’s looking very relaxed indeed.

She reaches for her drink on the small table between their chairs, and Clint does as well, looking at her with a big smile on his face. She takes a sip from her piña colada as she sees Phil coming towards them from down the beach.

She gives him a wave as he finally approaches and slides into place besides Clint.

“Tahiti’s a magical place, isn’t it?” He says.

“It is,” Natasha agrees, feeling content as she looks over the water.


End file.
